Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
